Reading, writing and speaking used to be the purpose of all college education, to create someone who can express themselves clearly and simply. They called him a liberally-educated man, someone who could say what they thought without babbling. Despite all the technical-babble that has swept the world, it is still about your ability to communicate simply and clearly.
The Six Stages of Reading
The late Dr. Jeanne Chall developed the theory that learning about literacy occurs in stages:
1.) Pre-reading; six months to six years: The pre-reading child has some phonological awareness or sensitivity to speech sounds, rhyming and alliteration; recognizes some letters and may link some to the sounds they make; some understanding of books and print.
2.) Initial reading or decoding; first and second grade: The child who is just beginning to read can sound out words one at a time and decode them slowly, carefully and accurately. Most of his attention is devoted to decoding with few mental resources left over for deeper comprehension.
3.) Confirmation and fluency; second and third grade: Gradually, as the child becomes more confident in his decoding skills, he reads for comprehension of the text.
4.) Reading to learn new information fourth through eighth grade: Once fluency is established, the reader can make the shift from "learning to read" to "reading to learn." He can acquire information from a text and compare it to his own ideas, but he is generally limited to one viewpoint at a time. His vocabulary now increases more through reading than through conversation.
5.) Coordinating multiple viewpoints; high school and beyond: The reader can compare and analyze texts with multiple viewpoints and can put them into the context of his earlier learning. He can read on several levels at once, considering, for example, facts, underlying assumptions and larger context.
6.) Construction and reconstruction; college and beyond: The mature reader constructs his own system of knowledge from the texts he reads, analyzing, synthesizing and making judgments about all of them to create his own understanding of the world. His mind is flexible and critical, his knowledge is both the cause and the result of constant reflection, exploration and curiosity.
The Five Key Areas of Reading Instruction
The federal Partnership for Reading has identified five keys of reading success:
1.) Phonemic awareness: The ability to focus on the individual speech sounds in words and to break words into their sounds, play with the sounds and blend them back together again.
Breaking words into sounds is called segmenting.
Playing with sounds is called manipulating.
Putting sounds together into words is called blending.
The reader connects sounds to letters and words.
2.) Phonics: The study and use of letter-sound relationships to help identify written words.
3.) Fluency: The ability to read in a smooth, flowing, connected way. Link words together into meaningful phrases.
4.) Vocabulary: Knowledge of word meanings, in both spoken and written language.
5.) Comprehension: Understanding text, both its individual words and its whole meaning.
The Phonics Approach
Phonics teaches the correspondence between letters and sounds, building cumulatively from there, adding simple words and sentences then more complex words and longer sentences.
Phonics is geared for seeking patterns and relationships betwwen letters and words.
The Whole Language Approach
The Whole Language Approach is kind of like the free-spirited, creative approach. You teach the child the very basics like phonics then you let them go. You have a shelf of interesting books all the way from simple to full novels.
Some kids are able to read complex stories very shortly after they learn the alphabet and a few hundred words. They're naturally inspired.
The criticism is that they're not taught some of the fundamentals of the language arts.
This approach works best for smart kids. The stupider kids need to spend more time on phonics before they can read a novel on their own.
Early Reading Info 1
The best you can do with a young child is talk to him. Get him to talk to you a lot.
Give him simple picture and text books that you get from the library or the bookstore.
Teach him to sing the alphabet song or recite the alphabet and know the sound of every letter.
Teach him to print his name.
Get him to copy stuff from a book.
If your child has problems learning to read, you might want to get his hearing and vision checked out. If they're fine, it might be something in his brain.
The principal's office of your local elementary school can help you arrange screening and remediation, if necessary by specialists, at no cost to you.
As the child learns to read, you must give him harder, more complex stories and articles to read so that he can build up his vocabulary.
Give him a variety of fiction and nonfiction.
Open the dictionary to any page and ask him to copy all multisyllabic words four vowels or more then recite them to you when he's done.
Teach compound words like treehouse or doubletime.
Teach the "pn" combination as in pneumonia.
Try to encourage the child to read something every day. Take him to the library so he can pick books that interest him.
Whenever you watch a movie together or go somewhere, keep a conversation going constantly to give the kid practice talking.
The parent should discuss with the child what he has just read at least once a week.
Get some tongue twisters off the internet. Have the kid say them.
There are many word games like Scrabble.
Gradually teach sentence structure and grammar by correcting the child and explaining the proper English.
Explain that the ability to talk and write are necessary for the child to grow up to be a noble being.
Correct double negatives.
Correct slang like ain't.
Early Reading Info 2
To learn to read and write, children must master both the meaning of language and the appearance and sounds of words as objects.
Some simple skills that go with learning reading are:
Rhyming, show it in poetry, rhyme "ay" with all the letters of the alphabet like bay, day, gay, etc.
Alliteration is used in poetry to create a sentence where several of the words sound alike, preferrably like the action in the sentence:
The snowstorm shot snowflakes all over the shore.
Sentence segmenting is string words into sentences.
Syllable blending is the art of not speaking in syllables but in smooth-flowing words.
Phonological awareness includes a range of abilities that have to do with focusing on oral language. A child who is phonologically aware is able to speak the rhythms of spoken words fluidly as both words and their meanings.
Phonemic awareness is understanding that spoken words are made up of separate syllables that represent sounds.
Learn to print your name with both upper and lowercase letters
Learn the short-long options for vowels.
Learn how to arrange words in alphabetical order.
Don't confuse g, p and q.
Learn when it's appropriate to use uppercase and lowercase letters.
Read to the child as a preschooler. Gradually get him to read simple books out loud.
The final goal is to be a smooth, fluent reader who enjoys reading for entertainment, to satisfy curiosity about the world and to learn practical knowledge to help you live a better life.
After the child becomes a good reader, encourage him to start writing his thoughts, feelings and ideas down. It's not good enough just to read. You have to be able to express yourself.
Cement the child's command of the English language by having intellectual conversations where you talk about the news, current events, school subjects, etc.
Practice with the silent e usually at the end of words.
Tricky consonants are h, w, y.
To learn spelling and new words in general, tell your kid to read a page in the dictionary everyday.
Use flash cards and spelling tests.
Poems and songs show the esthetic beauty of the written word.
Learn the Alphabet
Use flashcards and alphabet picture books.
Learn to sing the alphabet song.
Learn that each letter has a name and a sound.
Learn that there are vowels and consonants.
Learn the names of the letters used in your name.
Print the letters of the alphabet.
Learn uppercase and lowercase letters.
Learning to Read 1
There are many different theories about how to teach reading. The main conflict is between teaching skills versus meaning.
The most basic theory emphasizes the alphabet and letter combinations (st, ch, br, dr), drilling students letter by letter, having them recite aloud.
The whole-word method, focuses on meaningful words rather than the alphabet.
Mann's school of thought led to the look-say method. See a picture with the word, say it.
In 1955, Rudolf Flesch's Why Johnny Can't Read program called for intensive
phonics instruction.
In the 1960s, Jeanne Chall created the six stages of reading outlined elsewhere in this book. She was more for phonics than the whole-word approach.
In the 1980s, the emphasis shifted to the whole-language approach, which teaches a feel for language and a love of literature.
Today, most teachers favor a mixed approach that teaches phonics and whole language at the same time.
Learning to Read 2
Talk a lot to kids. Let talk radio play in their bedrooms. Watch TV talk shows with children because they learn to talk before they read.
Read together. Find a quiet place where you can focus on the book. The child will discover the pleasure of reading.
If the child doesn't want to read, don't push too much. The best encouragement is good books, even comic books.
Read books you like.
Ask your child questions about the books you read to him or books he reads. Try to ask questions that require more than a yes or no answer like, "What do you think is going to happen next?
Discuss books.
Let your child discover his natural interests then buy him books about them or borrow them at the library.
Watch television together and talk about it.
Visit the library.
A good reader constantly adds to his knowledge base as he reads.
The good reader can pick out the important ideas and ignore meaningless chatter "fluff" writing.
A good reader creates vivid visual pictures in his mind as he reads.
A good reader uses his knowledge to make inferences and draw conclusions.
He reads for clarity, summaring what he has read into the main points.
A good reader goes over confusing parts to try to understand the material but sometimes it's just bad writing. You can't make sense of it.
Keep a dictionary and thesaurus handy to look up unfamiliar words.
Start writing then go back everyday for a week to edit something you've written.
At some point in time, you'll have to learn to cite sources. There's a section about citation formats in this book.
Teach punctuation, proofreading, note taking and research.
Prefix & Suffix
Learning prefixes and suffixes is necessary to understand the meanings of some words;
Some prefixes are:
im
impossible, immature
inter
interact, international
tele
telescope, telephone
trans, across
transit, transport
dis
dislike, dissociate
un, not
unlikely, untamed
Suffixes are:
able, worthy of
lovable, memorable
er, or, person
teacher, sailor
ness, state of being
happiness, sadness
ology, study
biology, musicology
ful, full of
hopeful, grateful
Homonym/ Homophone
Homonyms/ Homophones are words that sound the same but have different meanings and different spellings.
Here are some homophones:
blew, blue
buy, by
cent, scent, sent
dear, deer
flour, flower
hear, here
hoarse, horse
hole, whole
hour, our
its, it's
knew, new
knight, night
know, no
main, mane
meat, meet
pair, pare, pear
read, red
right, write
sea, see
son, sun
tail, tale
there, their, they're
threw, through
to, too, two
weak, week
wear, where
who's, whose
wood, would
your, you're
Calvin & Hobbes Books to Teach Reading
Calvin and Hobbes is a syndicated comic strip written and illustrated by Bill Watterson. Calvin is an adventurous six-year-old boy. Hobbes is his stuffed tiger.
It's most often used to teach young boys to read.
teachingwithcalvinandhobbes.blogspot.com
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